This month the Kansas State Board of Education decided to revisit the issue of teaching evolution in public schools. In 1999, Kansas removed references to evolution from the state curriculum. Following the 2000 election, a new board returned evolution to the state education standards in 2001.
Evolution opponents weren’t discouraged in 2004, and Kansas elected another socially conservative school board.
The new majority on the board hopes to change the science standards to revise the definition of science to include nonnatural explanations for natural phenomena, emphasize that evolution is merely a ‘theory’ and teach the criticisms of evolutionary theory.
While teaching students the shortcomings of current evolutionary theory is good, some of the other proposed changes are suspiciously political.
The proponents of this alternative proposal supported by the school board are the ‘Intelligent Design’ theory lobby. Since teaching creationism in public schools is unconstitutional, creationists have largely adopted this ‘scientific’ alternative to evolution.
According to ID theory proponents, some biological components have irreducible complexity and therefore require an ‘intelligent designer.’ Supporters of the ID theory charge that there is political bias in attempting to censor their logical ‘scientific’ alternative, but the reasons why one shouldn’t teach ID theory as science should be as much scientific as they are constitutional.
ID theory defaults to the supernatural when naturalistic theories are imperfect. ID theorists like Michael Behe often write hundreds of pages criticizing evolution, but never show positive evidence for ID. This type of argument for ID theory fails because it is a fallacy of the excluded middle. Assuming current evolutionary theories are wrong doesn’t make ID theory correct.
Their proposal to redefine science to include nonnatural explanations as being scientific would open the door to teaching pseudoscience in classrooms with the blessing of the Kansas State Board of Education. Furthermore, supernatural explanations can’t be falsified and therefore fail Karl Popper’s falsifiable criterion that is widely considered necessary for something to be a science.
While supporters of ID theory deny that the intelligent designer must be a god, it seems more than coincidental that they want supernatural explanations to be deemed science. Hence, it is not surprising that critics of ID theory in the scientific community regard it as creationism by another name.
The lead critic against evolution in the hearings was attorney John Calvert, who argued that evolution ‘promotes atheism,’ which he considers an unconstitutional teaching of the religion of ‘naturalism.’ This is despite the fact that neither evolution nor naturalism meet the definition of a religion.
Calvert fails to realize that a religion requires a belief in ‘a supernatural power.’ Naturalistic evolution does not require the supernatural; therefore, it fails the test of being a religion. Calvert’s motivation to declare evolution as unconstitutionally promoting atheism is political.
Evolution, ironically, isn’t anti-religious in that one can believe in any religion if it lacks a story of creation or at least one that does not conflict with evolutionary theory. Many Buddhists, for example, can accept evolutionary theory, and even former Pope John Paul II recognized evolution as being ‘more than a hypothesis.’ Therefore, evolution doesn’t demand the death of non-theistic religion as Calvert claims. Every major science group boycotted the hearings as rigged against evolution and their suspicions proved correct. Even the two moderate members of the board subcommittee boycotted the hearings!
On the first day of the hearings, board member Kathy Martin admitted to having not read all of the evolution-friendly standards. How can one be fair if one refuses to even read all the evolution material? Furthermore, the board didn’t give Pedro Irigonegaray, an attorney who was the lone defender for evolutionary theory, the time he requested to seek witnesses.
On the other hand, the board gave Calvert additional time to rebut Irigonegaray during time that had been designated for the evolution defender!
In addition, Calvert and his 23 witnesses are being reimbursed $5,000 for the their costs, which increases the cost of the hearing to an estimated $17,350. Irigonegaray, in response, refused any reimbursement saying, ‘I believe that would be stealing from the children of Kansas.’ If Calvert cares so much about the issue, he should pay his own costs like Irigonegaray.
As the Wichita Eagle noted on April 12, ‘What Kansans should see is a waste of time and money and, once again, a train wreck for the state’s image.’ Their prediction proved accurate.

Shawn Augsburger is a fifth-year history major. He can be contacted at augsburs@uci.edu

Comments (6)

What we have here is the typical Darwinist ploy to pretend to discuss Intelligent Design but interchange religion, Creationism and Intelligent Design as if they are one and the same.

The kindest thing we can say is that the comments are by people that are ignorant about the subject and should not even be part of any discussion about Evolution and Intelligent Design.

Intelligent Design is not about religion, in fact it is a scientific theory about macro-evolution (changing from one species into another or to put it another way from one body plan into another) and about the origin of life. As it turns out there is more science in the theory of Intelligent Design then in the Darwinist version of Evolution.

We hear a lot about naturalism, but don’t the scientists accept the big bank theory? Intelligent Design theorists question if mutations can cause Macro-evolution, Darwinists assume they can with no proof what-so-ever. Dr. Behe wrote a book “edge of Evolution” that shows, using empirical evidence, three or more instantaneous, helpful mutations has never been scientifically shown to have occurred. Thousands upon thousands of spontaneous, helpful (non-deleterious) mutations would be needed for Darwin’s Macro-evolution to occur. Many Darwinists have tried to find fault with Dr Be book but all have been found not-creditable.

Keep in mind Darwin’s Macro-evolution has never been observed. Darwinian Evolutionists have never produced any actual evidence of Macro-evolution. There has never been any real evidence of transitional fossils. There should be millions of such fossils if Darwin’s theory was true. (All past transitional fossils have been shown to be mistakes or frauds.)

The best Darwinists have to offer is Micro-evolution which commonly is referred to as breeding for desired traits or variation within a species. We now know that each and every living cell contains the genes that provide for all the possible variations available to any species. No ants can be 20 feet tall, no horse 20 feet tall, no adult elephants 1/8 inch tall, we can only breed for the blue prints that currently exist in the genes found in each and every living cell. Darwinists cannot provide a single scientific test to prove Macro-evolution has ever occurred in the past or could occur in the future. All we hear is just a lot of speculation about how they think it could have accured,150 years and still no proof, just speculations.

We have here a Theory (Darwin’s Evolution) that has no creditability even after 150 years. This theory should be laughed out of the classroom. If we allow Evolution theory to be taught, we should require its faults to be part of that discussion. I would vote for Intelligent Design to be part of any discussion involving Evolution in the classroom.

Evolution not a Religion…?
re⋅li⋅gion /rɪˈlɪdʒən/ Show Spelled Pronunciation [ri-lij-uhn] Show IPA
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–noun 1. a set of beliefs concerning the cause, nature, and purpose of the universe,
a specific fundamental set of beliefs and practices generally agreed upon by a number of persons